Desperate Days Over the Reich

Final Effort: Luftwaffe Kamikazes

by Timothy J. Kutta

In March 1945, Goering made one final attempt to build on the ram fighter concept. The situation in the air had deteriorated badly for the Luftwaffe. Germany had many airplanes but few experienced pilots to man them. Pilot losses had been so severe that the bulk of the fighter pilots were poorly trained rookies who seldom completed more than one or two missions before they were shot down.

The situation was desperate. The American bombers were systematically laying waste to the cities of Reich. The Luftwaffe had to find a way to stop the bombers. Goering decided on a bold and risky plan.

Goering asked for volunteers for "special and dangerous" operations. He planned to create a force of Nazi Kamikazes. Without being informed of the mission or being given any additional information over 300 pilots volunteered.

The pilots were assembled at Stendal airfield for training. All of the volunteers received a good dose of political indoctrination. They were told about the horrors that the bombers were inflicting on innocent women and children and were brought to feverish enthusiasm with patriotic music and lectures. Then they were given their mission. They were to make suicide runs against American bombers.

They were issued specially-modified Messerschmitt Me-109Ks. These Me-109s were stripped of all armor and most of the weapons. Each aircraft was left with only a single machine gun with which to defend itself However, firepower was not a concern for this mission. The Me109Ks would be escorted to within sight of the bomber formation. After that each suicide pilot would pick out a bomber and crash into it.

On past occasions, German fighters had rammed bombers. When that happened the surviving American crews always attributed it to a "Kamikaze" attitude. While the German pilot may have indeed rammed the bomber, it is more likely that he was simply the victim of "target fixation". Often a pilot will concentrate on his target so long that he literally flies into it. Thus when a fighter rammed a bomber it was impossible to determine if he was part of a Sturmstaffel or if he just misjudged his attack.

Regardless, the pilots of the Sturmstaffel seldom had to ram. Their increased armor allowed them to press their attacks to a much shorter range. This, coupled with the plane's heavy armament, were almost certain to destroy the bomber. The successes of the Sturmgruppen may have been as much to their new tactics and the strength of their new aircraft as to ramming.

Now ramming was to be official policy! The actual details of the suicide operations were simple. When a massive American air raid was detected the suicide fighters would be escorted to the bomber formation by several squadrons of German fighters. These fighters would engage the American fighters and give the suicide pilots a chance to get into position. These pilots were to get ahead and slightly above the bombers. The pilots were told to pick out a single bomber and attack. They were to open fire at extreme range and to aim their plane at the area where the wings join the fuselage of the bomber. Just before impact, if possible, they were allowed to bail out.

Goering found that he had too many pilots for the number of modified Me109Ks. The pilots were then divided into two groups. Half of the pilots would be assigned to fill the growing number of vacancies in the ram fighters. The other half would be formed into a special squadron known as Sonderkommando Elbe. These men were pure Kamikazes.

On April 7th 1945, Sonderkommando Elbe, led by Oberst Hermann, made its one and only sortie of the war. One hundred and twenty pilots, flying Messerschmitt Me1091(s, took off to attack an American heavy bomber formation. The pilots intended to ram as many American bombers as possible. If each pilot was successful they would hand the American bombers one of their greatest defeats of the war. The loss of one hundred and twenty bombers and their crews would certainly cripple the daylight bombing for a few weeks if not months. In addition, the fear of being rammed might well scare the United States bomber crews into a mutiny.

In order to give the Sonderkommando a chance of getting close to the bombers they were escorted by the Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighters of Jagdgeschwader 7. The Germans hoped that the jets would draw off the fighter protection and thus allow the suicide pilots to get into position.

The American formation selected to receive the attack was the Third Air Division of the Eighth Air Force. The 503 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses were on their way to bomb Kaltenkirchen, Buchen, Gustrow, Parchim, Neumunster and several other targets in Germany. They were escorted by 317 North American P-51 fighters.

The two forces met above the SoltauLuneburg area of northern Germany. Unfortunately for the Germans the American fighter escort outnumbered them. Jagdgeschwader 7 only had forty-eight Messerschmitt Me-262s ready for operations that day. As the combined German force came into range of the Americans the escort attacked. The Mustang pilots were experienced and were not intimidated by the jets. They designated some fifty of their number to take on the jets while the rest of the escort moved to attack the one hundred and twenty Messerschmitt Me- 109Ks heading toward them.

The aerial combats spread across the sky but it was a one-sided battle. More than eighty of Sonderkommando Elbe pilots were killed outright in the fierce aerial combat. Dozens of others were wounded or disabled in the vicious American attack. Against this slaughter the Americans lost eighteen bombers. Of that number two bombers were shot down by the Messerschmitt Me-262s and three were destroyed by flak. Sonderkommando Elbe thus destroyed thirteen bombers that day, a number far from the deadly blow the Germans hoped to inflict.

The German suicide corps was finished. Certainly, after looking at the losses compared to the gain the Luftwaffe High Command would not have allowed any repetition of the affair. However, no one had accounted for the American reaction. At the end of the mission the American bomber crews were debriefed. It was obvious to the intelligence people that the Germans were attempting to ram the bombers. The American escort pilots were able to identify the airfields the Sonderkommando had used and the airfields of their jet escort. The Americans were not going to let this kind of thing happen. On the following three days the Eighth Air Force attacked the airfields. Over a thousand heavy bombers a day blasted the airfields and their facilities into oblivion.

During the course of the daylight bombing offensive of the Third Reich, the Luftwaffe tried three radical solutions to stop the American bombers. They first tried to sprinkle fanatic pilots, flying specially build aircraft, in their fighter groups.

These men, they hoped, would convince the other pilots that the enemy bombers could be attacked. Next, they tried to consolidate the fanatic pilots and specially build aircraft into larger groups. This unit, they hoped, would knock down great scores of American bombers. Finally, in desperation, the Luftwaffe formed a kamikaze unit, intent on destroying as many bombers as possible on a single day.

None of the ideas bore much fruit. The only way to knock down American bombers in sufficient numbers was to have large numbers of highly skilled fighter pilots. The Reich was never able to train that many pilots. Without the pilots, the Luftwaffe could only attempt stopgap measures. Unfortunately, by the time these measures were implemented the technical and numeric superiority of the Americans was simply too great to overcome.

In the end the ram fighters and kamikazes were simply last desperate acts of the Luftwaffe trying desperately to redress the balance of the air war over the Reich in their favor. Despite the courage and determination of the German pilots involved in these programs, their efforts were lost in the blaze of gunfire of the thousands of the American bomber and fighter machine guns.

Desperate Days Over the Reich

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